A TROPHY FOR ROOM EIGHT
Nan was badly frightened. But she had once faced a lynx up at Pine
Camp, and had come off without a scratch. Now she realized that
this mountain lion had much less reason for attacking her than had
the lynx of the Michigan woods; for the latter had had kittens to
defend.
The huge puma on the rock glared at her, flexed his shoulder
muscles, and opening his red mouth, spit just like the great cat he
was. Really, he was much more interested in the bleating red calf
than he was in the girl who was transfixed for the moment in her
tracks.
Bess, who could not see the puma, kept calling to Nan to look out
for the cow. She was more in fun than anything else, for she did
not believe the cow could catch her chum if the latter ran back.
What amazed Bess Harley was the fact that Nan stood so long by the
clump of brush which hid the rock on which the puma crouched from
Bess's eyes.
"What is the matter with you?" gasped Bess at last "You look like
Lot's wife, though you are too sweet ever to turn to salt, my dear.
Come on!"
Then, of a sudden, Bess heard the big cat spit! "My goodness!" she
shrieked, "what is that?"
Her cry was heard by Rhoda, at a distance. The Western girl knew
that something untoward was taking place. She ran for her pony and
leaped into the saddle.
"What is it?" she shouted to Bess, whom she could see from
horseback.
"Nan's found a red calf--and he makes the queerest noise," declared
the amazed Bess. "I'm afraid of that calf."
Walter ran to mount his pony, too. But Rhoda spurred directly
toward the spot where Bess stood. Being in the saddle, she was so
much higher than Nan's chum that she could see right over the brush
clump. Immediately she beheld Nan and the crouching lion.
"Come back, Nan!" she called quickly. "Stoop!"
She snatched the rifle from under her knee. It leaped to her
shoulder, and, standing up in her stirrups while her pony stood
quivering and snorting, for he had smelled the puma, the girl of
Rose Ranch took quick but unerring aim at the crouching,
slate-colored body on the boulder.
The beast was about to spring. Indeed, he did leap into the air.
But that was the reflex of his muscles after the bullet from
Rhoda's rifle struck him.
She had come up so that her sight had been most deadly--right
behind the fore shoulder. The ball entered there, split the beast's
heart, and came out of his chest. He tumbled to the ground, kicking
a bit, but quite dead before he landed.
"There!" exclaimed Rhoda, "I warrant that's the lion daddy was
speaking to Steve about last night. He said it wasn't coyotes that
killed all the strays. He had seen the tracks of this fellow in the
hills."
"Rhoda!" shrieked Bess, "is that a lion?"
"Most certainly, my dear."
"Hold me, somebody! I want to faint," gasped Bess. "And he almost
jumped right down our Nan's throat."
"No," said Nan. "Scared as I was, I knew enough to keep my mouth
shut."
But none of them were really as careless as they sounded. Rhoda
jumped down and hugged Nan. It was true that something might have
happened to the latter if the lion had missed his intended prey.
"And we'll have to shoot the poor calf. It's broken its leg," the
ranch girl said, after the congratulations were over.
The red and white cow still stood over the calf and bellowed. She
would occasionally run to the dead puma and try to toss it; but she
did not much like the near approach of human beings, either.
"I tell you what," Walter said, examining the dead puma with a
boy's interest: "That was an awfully clean shot, Rhoda. The pelt
won't be hurt. You should have this skin cured and made into a
rug."
"Oh, yes!" cried Bess. "Take it back to Lake-view Hall with you,
Rhoda, and decorate Room Eight, Corridor Four!"
"Come along, then," the Western girl said, smiling. "We'll ride
over to the herd and send one of the boys back to skin the lion and
butcher the veal, too. We might as well eat that calf as to leave
him for the coyotes."
They hurried away from the vicinity of the dead puma, and, to tell
the truth, for the rest of the ride the visitors from the East kept
very close together.
"To think," sighed Bess, when they had dismounted at the house some
time later and given the ponies over to the care of two Mexican
boys who came up from the corrals for them, "that one is liable to
run across lions and tigers and all kinds of wild beasts so near
such a beautiful house as this. It must have been a dream."
"That puma skin doesn't look like a dream," said Walter, laughing
and pointing to the pelt of the beast which hung from Rhoda's
saddle and made all the ponies nervous.
"Well," said Bess, with determination, "I am willing to learn to
shoot. And hereafter I won't go out of our bedroom without
strapping a pistol to my waist."
They all laughed at this statement. But they spent that afternoon,
with revolvers and light rifles, on what Rhoda called "the rifle
range," down behind the bunk houses. Hesitation Kane, the horse
wrangler, as silent almost as the sphinx, drifted out to the spot
and showed them by gestures, if not by many words, how to hit the
bull's-eye. Nan, as well as her chum, became much interested in
this sport. The adventure with the big puma really had made Nan
feel as though she should know how to use a gun.
Several days passed before the party rode far from Rose Ranch
again. But every day the young folks were in the saddle for a few
hours, and all became fair horsewomen--all but Walter, of course,
who was already a horseman.
There was great fun inside the big ranch house, as well as in the
open. In the evenings, especially, the young people's fun drew all
the idle hands about the place, as well as the family itself.
There were a player-piano and a fine phonograph in the big
drawing-room. The windows of this room opened down to the floor,
and the cowboys from the bunk house, the Mexicans, and even Ah
Foon, gathered on the side porch to hear the music.
When a dance record was put on the machine the clatter of boots on
the piazza betrayed more than one pair of punchers solemnly dancing
together.
"Though," complained Rhoda's father, "those spurs the boys wear
will be the ruination of my hardwood floor. Where do they think
they are? At a regular honky-tonk? None of 'em's got right good
sense."
"Let them dance, daddy," said his wife, who usually called the
ranch owner by the same pet name his daughter used. "They don't
often get a chance up here at the big house to show off. You and I
might better be out there, dancing with them."
"My glory, Ladybird!" gasped Mr. Hammond, in mock alarm. "I'm in my
stockin' feet. I'd get 'em full of splinters, like enough."
"Then, Walter, you come and dance with me," the blind woman cried.
"I'm bound to dance with somebody."
And to see her weaving in and out among the dancers in Walter's
grasp, one would never guess her affliction.
That evening's entertainment was only an impromptu affair. A few
nights later the house party was formally invited to a "ball" at
the men's quarters. The big dining room next the bunk house was
cleared out, two fiddles and an accordion obtained from Osaka, and
the Rose Ranch outfit showed the visitors what a real cowboy dance
was like.
Rhoda and her friends certainly had a fine time at this ball. Boys
from neighboring outfits attended, some riding fifty and sixty
miles to "shake a leg" as the local expression had it.
There were both Mexican and white girls from Osaka and from other
ranches. Even a party of Indians attended, but the young squaws
were in civilized costume and looked even more "American" than the
Mexican girls. One young Indian, however, confided to Walter that
he did not think the new dances were graceful or really worthy.
"Really, the square dances and the good old waltz are more to my
taste," he said. "We never took up these one--and two-steps at
Carlisle when I was there."
"Another of my cherished beliefs gone," confessed Walter,
afterward, to Nan. "I bet that redskin doesn't know how to throw
the tomahawk, and that he couldn't give the warhoop the proper
pronunciation if he tried. Dear me! this Southwest is getting
awfully civilized."
But Bess Harley was delighted with the evening's fun. Going to bed
at midnight, she said:
"Dear me, Rhoda, what perfectly lovely times you can have out here
in the wilderness. I never danced with so many nice boys before. I
never would have believed Rose Ranch was like this."